'Best restaurant in the world' to pop up in London for Olympics

Noma, the Copenhagen establishment that has held the title of ‘World’s Best Restaurant’ for the past two years, is to open a temporary venue at Claridge’s hotel during the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Chef Rene Redzepi’s ‘A Taste of Noma at Claridge’s’ will serve a five-course menu, lunch and dinner for 10 days, from July 28 through to August 6 in Claridge’s Ballroom. The price will be £195 (Rs 16,500).

Master chef: Rene Redzepi was this month included in Time magazine’s list of ‘The 100 Most Influential People in the World’. Pic/Getty images

“It’s very exciting for us to dip our toes in another country and to see what we can create,” Redzepi said in a telephone interview. “And the timing is perfect: we’re closing Noma from July 20 to August 15 for a renovation.”

It will be the first time Redzepi has taken Noma overseas and demand for tables will be heavy. Diners from around the world wait months for a table in Copenhagen. Noma receives as many as 100,000 reservation inquiries a month, over which time it serves a total of just 450 tables, Redzepi said.

Redzepi and his chefs from Copenhagen will recreate Noma dishes using seasonal British ingredients.

Redzepi was this month included in Time magazine’s list of ‘The 100 Most Influential People in the World’.

The magazine said, “With his restaurant Noma, René, 34, has already done something historic. He has placed Copenhagen and the Nordic countries on the global map of gastronomy. Today he is at the apex of the culinary world.”

Noma — which stands for ‘Nordisk Mad,’ or Nordic Food — is housed in a warehouse by the waterside in Copenhagen’s Christianshavn district.

Noma’s menu The menu at Noma is a “personal rendition of Nordic gourmet cuisine” — a mix of costly and everyday ingredients, unusual foraged native foods, and home-made vinegars, beers, spirits and wines.

Alongside modern cooking techniques, Redzepi has also revitalised age-old, curative and non-chemical methods of cooking such as smoking, salting, pickling, drying, grilling and baking on slabs of basalt.